Anti-Defamation League: Anti-Semitic incidents on rise

Denis J. O'Malley

Updated 10:57 pm, Tuesday, April 1, 2014

An audit by the Anti-Defamation League found that while the number of anti-Semitic incidents fell across the country last year, Connecticut saw an uptick, including two in Fairfield County.

The annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, which the ADL has produced since 1979, found the number of incidents in Connecticut rose from 17 in 2012 to 31 in 2013. The 31 incidents included 18 identified as harassment, six as vandalism and two as physical assault.

"No one is saying what's happening here is like some of the crises which communities have faced in Europe or places in other parts of the world, where Jews really are living with certain trepidation over who they are," said Rabbi Eric Polokoff of B'Nai Israel in Southbury. "I'm amazed year upon year upon year by the number of times where our kids have been exposed to hatred. It's one of those things where it operates very personally, but oftentimes just slightly below the radar screen."

Two incidents occurred last year in Fairfield County, including one in which several classmates accosted a Jewish student, forced the student into a bathtub and "sprayed (the student) with body spray to simulate the gas chambers and forced (the student) to pretend to `go to sleep,' " said Josh Sayles, assistant director for the ADL in Connecticut.

Sayles declined to identify the town in which the incident occurred, or the victim's gender and age, but he said it occurred in a high school. He did not know whether the incident resulted in law enforcement action, but did say discipline was meted by the school.

The second Fairfield County incident involved social media postings in which a Jewish student, unaware of the significance of a cross worn by another person in a photo posted online, asked about the "t-necklace," prompting another individual to reply "Your a (expletive) the cross isn't a T so take your Jewish (expletive) somewhere else."

Other incidents included mail denying the Holocaust that was sent to a survivor of the atrocity who had spoken publicly about her experience, and vandalism to a Jewish cemetery and educational institution.

Polokoff, who also serves on the executive committee of the ADL in Connecticut, said incidents such as swastikas on school desks are among the more common instances of anti-Semitism he hears about from children at the synagogue. "That's not a neutral symbol," he said. "That's a symbol which for certain people is going to be seen as an act of intimidation."

Nationally, the audit found documented anti-Semitic incidents decreasing by 19 percent in 2013, from 927 in 2012 to 751 in 2013.

And while Connecticut's numbers indicated an increase in 2013, in a news release accompanying the audit, the ADL suggested that increase may be the result of under-reporting in 2012.

In 2012, the audit only found 17 incidents after finding 43 in 2011 and 39 in 2010.

"We're never happy to see an increase in anti-Semitic incidents here in Connecticut, but we're careful not to read too much into the findings of any particular year," said Gary Jones, regional director of ADL's Connecticut office, in a news release. "The audit is not an exact science. We rely on law enforcement personnel and individuals from across the state to alert us to anti-Semitic incidents. We believe that the reduced numbers reported for 2012 were an aberration, and that our 2013 figures fall more in line with what we saw in 2010 and 2011."

Polokoff agreed that the audit is less than an "exact science," but reiterated that "a number of kids in our community over the last number of years have at some point had some experience which certainly would fall under anti-Semitism."

"Are there incidents which actually affect families and their lives? Absolutely," Polokoff said.

Conversely, the decrease in incidents across the country might too be misleading, as general anti-Semitic hate speech posted to the Internet is not counted in the audit unless the postings target specific individuals.